I guess it's over. How sad the group of investors originally from Gravesend Brooklyn who are buying the Takanassee Beach Club property, also known as U.S. Life Saving Station No. 5, have money but such limited vision.

My parents, second-generation Ashkenazi Jews whose parents immigrated from Eastern Europe, were educated people who taught me a deep appreciation of the beauty of nature as well as the preservation of history. I don't have the money, but I do have the vision to see what an incredible tourist destination this property could become.

Imagine the renovated historic buildings as bed-and-breakfast rooms renting for $200 a night. A restaurant/bar overlooks the beauty of the property, with views of both the ocean and lakefront. A small museum has a gift shop. There's a new boutique hotel built in the style of the old Victorian hotels that once graced our shoreline, a bait-and-tackle shop, surf shop and beach sundries — all possible renewable income for this property.

The investors' vision is a wall of four-story residential buildings that will block out the light and cool ocean breezes that now flow through the property. In this real estate market, several large oceanfront properties in Long Branch are available to be developed in this manner without destroying the historic site of the U.S. Life Saving Service. The three Life Station buildings on their original site at Takanassee is what gives them their rare value.

Ignorantly, they are about to throw the baby out with the bath water. I urge them to rethink their plans.

Beth Woolley

TRUSTEELONG BRANCHHSTORICAL ASSOCIATION

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"I have police issues. People are coming in and out of those buildings," he said of the historic structures located on the 4.6-acre-site. "No one has any objections to surfers and fishermen but there are these buildings that are old and people are coming in and out" and the owner is under pressure from the DEP and his own insurance carrier to keep them safe.

It is time to pass historic preservation legislation in Long Branch with the help of state aid and technical expertise. Unfortunately, a strictly voluntary system of historic preservation won't enable the city to receive state support. We have to professionally identify and designate our most precious historic structures.

Some members of City Council and the public are worried a well-meaning but idealistic historic preservation commission may go crazy and start designating homes and buildings all over the city, but this fear is unfounded. The council has the final responsibility.

It is highly unlikely that non-historic residential structures would somehow get designated as "historic." Not only is it fairly difficult to earn an authentic designation, there are several levels and opportunities for appeals and reversals, and we don't have much historic residential housing stock left anyway.

Very few, if any, residences would be eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Most of the eligible historic structures and places in Long Branch are institutional, such as churches, libraries and schools.

We should therefore accept involuntary designation for the most historic treasures we have left, and if any property owners reject designation, City Council could work out a compromise or take a vote on it. Any structure so designated should be eligible for a property tax break.

A historic preservation commission also should identify and preserve historic documents and other materials, and implement the insertion of historic markers and placques at locations such as President Grant's former property on Ocean Avenue, President Chester Arthur's home on Park Avenue and the Takanassee Lifesaving Station site.

Brian UngerMEMBER, LONG BRANCH CITY COUNCIL

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LONG BRANCH: City Councilman Brian Unger and Wil1 Somers will speak tonight at a meeting of the Long Branch Historical Association on an initiative Somers is promoting to locate the Atlantic Surfing Museum in the city. Among the proposed places has been the "Port Huron" building at the former Takanassee Beach Club.

The meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. on the second floor of Long Branch City Hall, in council chambers. It's free and refreshments will be served.Carol Gorga Williams

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